


Sometimes it isn't enough

by ScarlettSterling



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader-Insert, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettSterling/pseuds/ScarlettSterling
Summary: You've tried again and again to get yourself up and out of the rut you've found yourself, but having nobody outside of your family to talk to is really starting to wear on you more than you ever thought it would. It isn't until you start going to the class your twin brother recommended for you that you finally find a way to help yourself get better.





	1. Chapter 1 - What??

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is my first fanfiction, so I hope it's not too bad. Feel free to comment with anything you would like to see happen in this. I will happily take suggestions.

Waking up to the sound of your alarm pulls you from the bliss that is sleep. You always have your alarm set for about 2 hours before you have to be at work so you can get ready at your usual lazy pace. You slowly pull yourself from the comforts of your bed to drag your sorry ass to the shower to go through your normal routine robotically. Wash your face, shave yourself, wash yourself, shampoo your hair, sulk under the stream of hot water for an extra 5 minutes building up the energy to get out and face the day. You then wrap yourself in a towel and pick up your dirty clothes, throwing them in your basket in your room. Mornings are never all that exciting, but you do what you've always done, not even caring that it isn't accomplishing anything. You flop back onto your bed, scrolling through your social media profiles, checking for anything worth reading, not that anything ever interests you but it's just what you do at this point. When you inevitably come up empty-handed, you switch to instead watching Youtube, having set your alarm telling you to actually get ready the night before. In the middle of the latest instalment of your favourite gaming playlist your alarm goes off, and you know that if you don't get dressed now you'll definitely be late to work, and there's only so many excuses you can come up with for why you're late. Pulling on a pair of work pants, you throw on the first clean shirt you see in the disaster on your floor before donning it and a pair of socks.

Putting on deodorant and gathering up your stuff for the day you finally leave your room. You go to the front closet of your apartment and grab the cat food to feed your cat, Noodle. She was a long skinny little thing when you first got her, but now that she's full grown, she's better proportioned, so the name doesn't fit as well. After feeding and watering your cat, you quickly brush your teeth, and pull on your leather jacket, your grey scarf, toque, and gloves before grabbing your keys and purse and locking your door behind you.

The drive to work was the same monotonous thing as every other day, improved only by the music you play, giving you a brief glimmer of joy before the hellscape that your customer service job becomes when the season change hits. It should be seasonal, but no, they make money all year, and that's all that matters to giant corporations. Your day is just as long and boring as the last couple months have been anyway, so you and your co-workers finish up creating your D&D characters for when you start your campaign next week. The five of you wanted to have something to do outside of work together as all of you got along really well, including your manager. That might have something to do with the fact that you are all in your twenties. By the time 7 rolls around, the sun is a distant memory, and you're beyond ready to go home and just either keep watching the Youtube video you had started before work, or just sleep, until you remember that the class your twin told you he'd signed the two of you up for started in less than an hour.

You get to your apartment after another boring drive, and quickly change and clean yourself up a bit. Really you just put on some old dark-wash jeans, a nerdy t-shirt from a fandom you aren't even really a part of anymore, and your not-work shoes. You slip your leather jacket and winter necessities back on before once again locking your apartment behind you. Your brother calls to say he's here to pick you up. You throw your keys in your pocket, not minding that you won't have to drive, but knowing that it's really only to be sure you'll actually go.  
You slip into the passenger seat, phone in hand and a lazy greeting aimed at your brother.

“So, where exactly is this thing?” You ask flippantly fiddling with your phone keeping your hands busy so you won’t crack your knuckles or pick at the seams of your well-worn pants.  
“It’s at the museum, y/n, like I told you when I first signed you up, then again last week, and again this morning.” He looks over at you sadly. You try not to feel worse at the look your younger twin gives you and instead you turn on the radio. It’s on a country station, so you immediately turn it back off again. You go back to staring at your hands as you flip and fiddle with your phone to avoid seeing that look on your brother’s face.

It wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t remember anything anymore. Nothing felt worth the effort to remember, it barely felt worth it to get up in the morning to go to work, especially seeing as the only things you paid for were rent, your phone, and your car, and that could be done with half the amount of time you get at work. You hardly ever eat, and when you do it’s usually just something instant because you can’t convince yourself it’s worth it to have something that might actually sustain you rather than something that will take the minimum required effort. You order food to your place more often than not, and honestly it’s a damned good thing you didn’t live with a roommate, otherwise you’d have someone pissed at you all the time, because you leave your stuff everywhere. Garbage, dishes, papers, crumpled sketches, and rough drafts for the various ideas you’ll occasionally get for a new story, but then never do anything with because that requires effort, and ability, both of which you don’t have. Your parents would have killed you if you had been this much of a mess back home. You don’t think you’ve taken out the garbage in almost 3 weeks, and you know you haven’t cleaned up anything other than the kitty litter and the old food in at least a month. You are living in a fairly decent place, nothing amazing, but pretty nice quality at least. Though it doesn’t look like it because of how little care you have for anything at all.

The only thing that seems untouched by your utter apathy towards life is your entertainment center and bookshelves. The shelves are filled to the utter brim with all your books, comics, movies and your video games, while on the entertainment stand there are even more games, along with your favourite movies, and all your music. Beside the massive flat screen TV is your record and CD player that you think is probably one of the coolest things you own, just after your weapons collection. All this stuff is clean, organized and well maintained, as it’s your safety blanket, it’s your escape.

Your brother pulls into an empty spot near the front of the museum, and you both get out of his Maserati Alfieri, a gorgeous top-of-the-line luxury car. You feel even smaller just standing beside your successful, well dressed twin. While you’re wearing well-worn jeans and an old t-shirt, he’s wearing a 3 piece suit with the top couple buttons of his shirt undone, and his tie loose around his neck. He waits until you approach him before you enter the building together.

Entering the building for the first time since they rebuilt, you immediately notice the changes. The walls are all smooth, with a cool, light grey paint and classy, sleek black trim and accents. The ceiling is stark white, and the floors are what appears to be white and grey granite tiles. There’s a huge glass dome in the middle of the massive main room that seems to function as an observatory in this small city you live in, and you stare up transfixed by the glittering of the stars you didn’t even know you could see in town. Perhaps they’re enhanced somehow? You let your gaze wander around the room, wondering who funded such a huge revamp of the once rather dingy and old museum. You notice your brother looking at you with a warm look you don’t understand, and that’s when you realize that you’ve been smiling and staring for a few minutes as you took everything in.

“Sorry, bro. I didn’t realize I was staring for so long. It looks amazing!” He chuckles, but the warm look he’s giving you stays in place. Instead of answering you, he gently guides you off to a side room with a sign reading simply “Acrylic 1”. Paint classes? Oh, probably a good thing you wore clothes you wouldn’t mind getting messy.

“You always complain that your art isn’t good enough, and while I disagree, I figured this might be a good way to get you out of your head for a little while every week. And a good way to spend some time with you.” Your brother admits, looking slightly sad. You know you’ve been pushing everyone away, but you can’t help it, you just don’t have the energy to deal with people more often than you have to. But you agree, it will be nice to see your twin more often.

After the two of you pick your seats front and center of the semi-circle so you can both actually see (you’re both quite near-sighted, and have been wearing glasses since childhood), more and more people start streaming in. It was a healthy mix of both the humans, and the rather reclusive monsters.

The monsters had surfaced less than 3 years ago, but while at first they tried to integrate fully, they realized that humans aren’t the greatest people, and so they built their own little communities, and they stick together for the most part. However, they do seem to appreciate human art, and entertainment, so while they are mostly entirely segregated (of their own volition) from humans, you would see some of them occasionally at places like the movies, or theatres, or art galleries. Honestly that seemed like a brilliant way to slowly get humans to accept them, by slowly joining them more and more rather than all at once.

After about half an hour from when you and your brother arrived, nearly all the tables in the room were full, except a couple tables beside you. There are 7 spots that simply said “RESERVED” directly to your right. While you are ambidextrous, you are also incredibly nervous around strangers, so you hoped that no one came to claim them. Unfortunately for you, just moments after you thought that, a small party of interesting and diverse looking monsters came in with a literal bang. The door ricocheted off the wall, only to be caught and held open for the rest of the party by a small human (you assume they’re a child, but you can’t really tell anything about them from the brief glance you gave.)

After a quick assessment of the room, and realizing that they must be who the table’s been reserved for, you quickly look back down at the table where you’ve arranged and rearranged your paint tools until it starts to look like you have OCD. You stop, but instead pick up your phone and flip it back and forth in your hands, not really using it, but just having it there so you don’t continuously crack your knuckles. You keep your hands down in your lap, under the table to keep it inconspicuous, but your brother catches you, and gives you a look like, “knock it off. It’s going to be ok.” And you listen to him to the best of your abilities. You stop flipping your phone, and you’ve stopped rearranging everything in front of you. But now you’re nervous, and you have nothing else to fiddle with, so as you notice the group finally sitting down beside you from your peripheral vision, you start cracking your knuckles… loudly.

You risk a quick glance over to the table beside you as you’re wringing the life out of your hands, only to see the small human which you can now tell is definitely a child, though you still can’t distinguish their gender, who has a skeleton sitting beside them. The skeleton looks quite intimidating, but oddly enough, you actually love spooky stuff like skeletons and ghosts. They’ve caught your intrigue, despite still only looking at them from the corner of your eye. Risking it, you turn your head slightly, hopefully to see them better, as the frames of your glasses were preventing you from seeing properly. You avoid making eye contact, but you check out the group beside you, starting with the kid. They’re entirely androgynous, but that’s alright, they’re adorable and pull it off well. They’re wearing a blue and purple striped shirt, and their hair is styled in a messy bob. They’re signing with the skeleton beside them. The skeleton is quite loud, and very happy, which he seems to exude almost as strongly as confidence, and it intimidates you a little. Beside the skeleton is a blue fish (?) lady with beautiful hair that’s bright enough to even compare to your family’s ginger locks. Beside the fish woman is a huge goat (?) man with massive curling horns, and a blonde beard to match his flowing blonde hair. You can’t really see past him without being obvious you’re looking, so you go back to staring at your workspace.

Shortly after a lady walks in wielding a huge covered canvas, and an equally huge blank canvas. She sets up the covered canvas up high so everyone can see it, and then she sets up the blank canvas directly underneath it. Another lady walks in pushing one cart laden with enough canvases for everyone in the room, and dragging another behind her filled with more than enough paint for everyone and then some. She brings it to the front where the other lady thanks her in a hushed voice before turning to face the assembled group.

“Hello and welcome to Acrylics 1. My name is Sharon, and I will be your instructor today. Behind me, getting the paint all set up is my lovely assistant, Emma. She will be there to refill your paint, and to change your water as necessary tonight. Please be kind, as there are quite a few of you, and only one of her. Tonight we will be working on something a little different to what you might have seen on our ads. Unfortunately, we were unable to get permission to use that particular painting and painter for the instructions tonight, so instead we will be using myself and my work.” She pauses as she unveils a beautiful painting of a starry night with an aurora borealis around a Banff mountain scene, complete with a frozen lake and snow.

“This might not be what you were here to do, and it may not be what you were expecting, however I can personally guarantee that it will be worth it to stick around tonight. After this class is over, there will be refreshments provided in the main room. Also, there are bar services available for those of age who may want them.” With that, she claps her hands together and the class begins.


	2. Chapter 2 - Who?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You meet Frisk and emotions happen

It takes you a couple more weeks of going to the class with your twin before you start to relax from your anxious bubble of paying way too much attention to your surroundings whilst simultaneously being stuck in your own head. It starts off small with you no longer needing to organize everything in front of you a million times, and builds from there. After a month, you only organize your stuff once, then you actually chat with your brother, instead of listening and giving only single word answers you can now hold a real conversation, inserting anecdotes, and bringing up new topics. You still can’t look anyone in the eye without them talking to you first, but that’s just how you have always been. It isn’t until you’ve been going for a couple months that your neighbouring table begins to interact with you.

It starts when the kid accidentally knocks their cup of dirty paint-water onto you and your most recent painting. You jolt with a quiet “fuck” and try to save your painting as best you can. Thankfully the most recent layer was dry and you had just been about to start the next step. You easily wipe the water off your canvas when you notice the kid holding out paper-towel to you to help you dry off. You look the kid in the eyes and give them a small smile as you take the offered paper, and they visibly relax. You thank them as you try to get the dirtied water off your black jeans. Unfortunately, you know that isn’t going to happen without a good washing first. But you do your best to dry off anyway, the kid keeps handing you clean paper towel. You were glad that everything was subtle, because you really don’t want any extra attention.

Unbeknownst to you at that point the entire group of monsters at the table beside you were watching on. Most people didn’t take kindly to their group, and that had also extended over to the child helping you. You however don’t even seem to notice this fact, despite their group being loud and everyone being around 6 feet and taller.

Once you were satisfied that you had done everything you could save for going to the bathroom and taking them off to dry under the hand drier, you take a quick look around to make sure nobody was staring at you, and thank the kid for helping, after brushing off their apologies saying that it wasn’t a huge deal, and that it was an accident, that happens to everyone. They seem grateful, and you wonder how you hadn’t even noticed that this whole time they had been signing to you. After the kid seems to have calmed down and awkwardly gone back to their own stuff, you put your painting back up on the easel you had taken it off of before the incident, and turn to your brother. He’s giving you a look that says “you alright? I know you hate when stuff interferes with your art.” You look back at him and just mouth “It’s ok. I’m ok.” And go back to trying to finish your piece before the time’s up.

The following week, the kid comes up to you before the start of the class and apologizes once more before introducing themselves.

‘Hi. I’m really sorry about what happened last week. My name is Frisk.’ They sign at you.

“It’s nice to meet you, Frisk. I’m ____. 

With that simple introduction, it’s almost as though you had opened unforeseen floodgates in this tiny child. They are here standing beside you signing a million miles an hour, and you are barely managing to keep up with their rapid fire hands. You do your best to catch everything they’re saying, though for some reason the most you actually retain is that the big fluffy monsters are their parents and the king and queen (?), that the skeletons are brothers, and the blue fish lady and the yellow dinosaur lady are together. At least you think you caught that right. The kid sure is excitable. They barely let you get a word in edgewise, but you’re ok with that. Your brother left you when you started chatting with the kid. It’s strange, this tiny child is making you more comfortable in a single simple conversation than you’ve ever been while talking to a stranger. You could get used to this kid for that alone. Plus they seem older than they look, so it isn’t quite the same as talking to any other kids, which is good for you because you don’t usually like children.

After doing your absolute best to try and listen to everything the kid has to say the class is merely minutes away from starting. The kid pauses just long enough that you can catch a break before asking you slightly slower if you want to meet their family.

“Uh, I mean, the class is about to start.” You say, trying to get out of having to meet people that actually speak in words, and will probably ask you questions and expect answers and you start lightly panicking until you catch your brother’s eye and he comes to the rescue.

“Hi, I’m ____’s twin, Xander. Sorry to interrupt you, but I actually need her help with something.” He watches Frisk’s greeting. “It was nice to meet you too Frisk.” He says with a charming smile, grabbing your arm lightly as you retreat into yourself to force yourself to take deep breaths, and to list what you can sense to ground yourself.

As your brother gently leads you to your normal spots, you slowly regain yourself, and your breathing goes back to normal, and though your heartrate is still a little high, it isn’t pounding anymore. You sit down heavily, and heave a deep sigh. You turn to your brother to thank him.

“I’m sorry I’m like this. Goodness knows that I wish I wasn’t. Thank you for helping me.” You say, grateful for everything your brother’s been doing to try and help. Your therapist has done a lot of good work, but therapy only goes so far, and the drugs you’ve been prescribed aren’t miracles, so they help with the underlying hormonal imbalance in your brain, but don’t hide the symptoms.

“You’re welcome. But what happened. What did they want that caused you to freak out so bad?” His inquiry is simple curiosity, but it’s also a very stupid, personal thing, and you think you're being silly.

“They asked me if I wanted to meet their family. They talked about their parents being royalty, and the other 4 in their group. They sounded like great people, but they speak, we have all heard them speak over the last couple months, and they would ask questions that they would probably expect answers to, and I just freaked out. I was ok with the kid because they didn’t ask me to talk more than a simple introduction before they started signing super-fast.” You say, barely above a whisper. Not looking at your brother, afraid that he might judge you. You keep watching your hands as they fiddle with a loose string from your baggy sweater until he grabs your hands and pulls you in for a hug.

“Oh, ____. How about after this class is done, the two of us go talk to the kid and ask to meet their family one at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed? Do you think that would work?” Your brother asks after he let you go. You can’t imagine what would happen to you if you ever lost your brother. Or your father for that matter, as they are both so incredibly important to you, and they’re the main reasons why you’re still here. With their help you feel like you can do almost anything.

“As long as you and the kid are there to mediate, that could work.” You finally admit after being slapped in the face once again with the knowledge that you’d be lost without your family. You look at your brother with the warmest look you can manage, and give him a wavering smile, the best you can do presently.

“Alright, then it’s a plan. After the class lets out, we are going to introduce us to some new people.”


End file.
